Convenor: Vincent Boyer and Giovanni Barontini

Module Code: OPT

Start : TBC Easter 2023

Module Details

This is a 3 day residential lab running in Birmingham. It is organised around modules, each running for half a day or a day, and maybe comprising a short introductory lecture. There may the possibility of doing “a la carte” programme depending on the interests of students. We will however be limited to 8-10 students, assuming they are working in pairs.

Other short lectures may include basic beam manipulation (mirrors, etc), how to handle and clean optics, etc.

The list below is indicative of the available modules. Where possible, these can be tailored in content and difficulty to match the needs of the students.

Optical fibre (2 set-ups)
• Gaussian optics (propagation, lens transformation, etc)
• fibre injection (coupling + polarisation control)
• Aberrations and breakdown of Gaussian approximation

Acousto-optic modulator + photodiode (1-2 set-ups)
• AOM optimisation, including double pass
• Thermal effects in AOMs
• photodiode bandwith
• Optional: observation of beats between 2 beams

Camera (2 set-ups)
• Imaging with camera and laser beam
• (de-)Magnification, detection optimisation (types of camera noises, etc)

Saturated absorption (2 set-ups)
• Absorption, Doppler effect, saturation
• Doppler-free set-up, optimisation, pumping effects
• Locking a laser to an atomic line

Cavity (2 set-ups)
• Resonance
• Modes of a cavity, mode matching
• Phase modulation
• Pound-Drever-Hall locking

Polarisation (2 set-ups)
• Basic components and polarisation manipulation
• Polarisation analysis
• Pitfalls: thermal effects in waveplates, effect of dielectric mirrors, etc.